BAG A CULTURE 



labour , for, as to taxes, the amount is not worth naming, 

 especially after the sublime spectacle o.f that sort, which the 

 world beholds in England. 



142. I am, you will perceive, not making any account of the 

 price of Ruta Baga, cabbages, carrots, parsnips and white turnips 

 at New York, or any other market. I now, indeed, sell carrots 

 and parsnips at three quarters of a dollar the hundred, by tale ; 

 cabbages (of last fall) at about three dollars a hundred, and white 

 turnips at a quarter of a dollar a bushel. When this can be done, 

 and the distance is within twenty or thirty miles on the best road 

 in the world, it will, of course, be done ; but, my calculations are 

 built upon a supposed consumption of the whole upon the farm 

 by animals of one sort or another. 



143. My feeding would be nearly as follows. I will begin with 

 February ; for, until then, the Ruta Baga does not come to its 

 sweetest taste. It is like an apple, that must have time to ripen ; 

 but, then, it retains its goodness much longer. I have proved, 

 and especially in the feeding of hogs, that the Ruta Baga is never 

 so good, till it arrives at a mature state. In February, and about 

 the first of that month, I should begin bringing in my Ruta Baga, 



-in the manner before described. My three oxen, which would 

 have been brought forward by other food, to be spoken of by and 

 by, would be tied up in a stall looking into one of those fine com 

 modious barn floors which we have upon this island. Their 

 stall should be warm, and they should be kept well littered, and 

 cleaned out frequently. The Ruta Baga just chopped into large 

 pieces with a spade or shovel, and tossed into the manger to the 

 oxen at the rate of about two bushels a day to each ox, would make 

 them completely fat, without the aid of corn, hay, or any other 

 thing. I should, probably, kill one ox at Christmas, and, in that 

 case, he must have had a longer time than the others upon other 

 food. If I killed one of the two remaining oxen in the middle of 

 March, and the other on the first of May, they would consume 

 266 bushels of Ruta Baga. 



144. My hundred ewes would begin upon Ruta Baga at the 

 same time, and, as my grass ground would be only twelve acres 

 until after hay-time, I shall suppose them to be fed on this root 

 till July, and they will always eat it and thrive upon it. They 

 will eat about eight pounds each, a day ; so that, for 150 days it 

 would require a hundred and twenty thousand pounds weight, 

 or two thousand four hundred bushels. 



145. Fourteen breeding sows to be kept all the year round, 

 would bring a hundred pigs in the Spring, and they and their 

 pigs would, during the same 150 days, consume much about the 

 same quantity ; for, though the pigs would be small during these 

 150 days, yet they eat a great deal more than sheep in proportion 

 to their size, or rather bulk. However, as they would eat very little 

 during the first 60 days of their age, I have rather over-rated their 

 consumption. 



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